Tuesday 14 October 2014

The Great River Race 2014

And so it came to pass that it was time once again for the Great River Race in London, surely the highlight of anyone's rowing calender, certainly the highlight of RWYC's rowing calender.  For the club's rowers it is more than a race, more than a magnificent spectacle on The Thames, more than an event in the nation's capital; it is a chance to measure our progress as rowers and I'm happy to report that 2014's results indicate that we are getting stronger.  More on the stats later....let's get on with craic.

Ground Zero (Ham): L-R Holly, Mark, Pete, Mike, Angie, Helen, Rhoswen, Sam & Cara

Friday 26th September and all flooded South via various modes of transport and from corners far; most from home but also Mark and Cara from Oxford, Helen from York, Holly from Liverpool, Ian from London, Trevor from Brighton and Rhoswen and Sam from Birmingham.  JJ and Mo had were the supporting advance party and had set-up ready to cook for us by the time we started to trickle in.  Most made the event campsite at Ham in daylight, others arrived later - such as Rhoswen and Sam who valiantly set about pitching their new tent for the first time in the dark - it took a while!!

After consuming JJ and Mo's colossal and excellent chilli we headed for the music/beer/dancing tent for the weekend warm-up.  As we're all getting older, and that would be too obvious an explanation, and I have no better, we just have to accept that we didn't rip the proverbial out of the evening; heading for bed before we eroded our rowability before we'd even begun.  

Saturday dawned and we all piled onto the buses that would take us across London to the start in Milwall.  Some confusion did reign as even though we had been assigned a bus number, the buses weren't actually displaying any numbers - a little chaos is good for the soul!!  


The scene at Milwall before the race

At Milwall we were greeted by the normal colourful scene of well controlled bedlam of boats, crews, supporters, food stalls and gargantuan toilet queues.  RWYC crews were as follows, all competing as Mixed Celtic Longboat:

57 Macsen: Neil, Mike, Pete, Angie, Helen & Holly

58 Elen: Sarah, Trevor R, Meg, Rhoswen, Mark & Trevor W

91 Branwen: Martin, Brian, Elin, Cara, Bethan & Ian 

Ian preparing carefully prior to the start

 Slowly the time to launch approached and wishing each other good luck, the crews bobbed out into the Thames to jockey amongst an armada of boats and boat types.

 The field assembles at Milwall

And.......we were off.....under grey but dry skies and virtually no wind which meant feathering the oars was not necessary and thus saving effort.  In previous years the field thinned out fairly quickly but this year it seemed to stay bunched for a long long time.  This made for interesting coxing when it came to negotiating the narrow confines of the numerous bridge arches; selecting and maintaining a line was a tricky at best.  The first bridge is Tower Bridge whose size and magnificence is amplified from the seat of a rowing boat.  Crowds thronged the sidewalks above the rowers' arch and we did our best to return their waves and keep rowing in time.


Conditions remained perfect throughout the race and from Macsen, the course just seemed to slip by.  


The view from Elen
















Branwen in full flow
 
Macsen underway


  







And so the results:

Macsen      2hr 38min 18sec     4th in class     5mins faster and 5 places higher than 2013

Elen           2hr 51min 08sec     12th in class   13mins faster and 4 places higher than 2013

Branwen    2hr 44min 43sec      9th in class     8mins faster and 19 places higher than 2013

A great effort by everyone, rowers and supporters.  Lots to aim for in 2015 and even maybe a top 3 placing, who knows, we might surprise ourselves!!

The post race prize giving tent - a cacophany of fun, sweat, beer and avian weirdness!!



Our thanks to JJ, Mo, Louise, Sam for their support and food.  Martin, Sarah and Brian for towing the boats and finally Debbie for once again organising us all - never an easy task.

Great River Race Website 

2014 Provisional Results

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